Meet Edmonton’s crop of new councillors

Ward 1 candidate Andrew Knack waves to vehicles as they drive along 142 Street on Monday.

Photograph by: Topher Seguin
, Edmonton Journal

Ward 1

Andrew Knack

Age: 29

Previous occupation: Retail manager at BOSE, an electronics store in West Edmonton Mall

Top priority for Ward 1: “Making sure that we get a firm timeline in place for the west leg of the LRT. This is something that came up over and over again at many of the doors and people would like to see it much sooner than the 20- to 25-year timeline.”Top priority for the city: “More community engagement, making sure people are feeling involved with the decision making process that city council goes through.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: Jasper Place Library because it’s a beautiful building and it’s a great community resource.

How he celebrated his win: “We’re celebrating today by picking up lawn signs.”

Ward 2

Bev Esslinger

Age: 55

Previous occupation: Executive director of SHAPE, a non-profit organization that promotes children walking and biking to school.

Top priority for Ward 2: “I’d like to continue to work with the Blatchford stakeholder committee to work on the redevelopment of the City Centre (Airport) land. I think it’s a great opportunity for the city and I want to make sure it’s something that we’re all proud of and that will reflect the area’s aviation history.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: Walking around her community and the river valley.

How she celebrated her win: She watched the results come in with friends, family and volunteers at the Chateau Nova, then they joined Don Iveson’s party. She will also be celebrating with her family by going out for dinner.

Top priority for Ward 5: “There’s a country club that has a road access issue. At the Edmonton Country Club (in the Oleskiw area), the city has expropriated a road that goes out to the club to build a new footbridge that’s going across the river. So there’s a kerfuffle about that, so I’d like to help mediate and come to a workable conclusion on that issue. I would like to get the LRT out to the west end at some point and I’d like to get more recreational opportunities out in the west end.”

Top priority for the city: “My first one would be to make sure our momentum continues. The city is on the right path, I think, and I want to make sure we continue moving forward. Doing the airport Blatchford development — not only doing the development but doing it the right way — is a very unique opportunity. Also basic services ... we’ve got to make sure we do a better job of that.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: Trails in the river valley to toward a new footbridge off Wolf Willow Road in the Westridge neighbourhood.

Top priority for Ward 6: “To legitimately increase the amount of engagement between the councillor’s office and the communities of Ward 6. That was a commitment I made during the campaign and I really want to follow through.”

Top priority for the city: “Now is the time to pause a bit from the big projects and work on some of the fine details across the city; obviously infrastructure, the concerns about the roads, the current concerns about the sewers. I think we have to make sure we have a city that is working well and efficiently right now before we tackle any other huge projects.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: He said 124th Street because of how it’s developing into a walkable neighbourhood with great shops, cafes and restaurants.

How he celebrated his win: He’ll be gathering for dinner with his campaign team to trade tales from the campaign trail and “I suspect laughing a lot.”

Ward 10

Michael Walters

Age: 42

Previous occupation: Community organizer and entrepreneur.

Top priority for Ward 10: “My to priority for the ward is two-fold. A major issue that emerged early in the campaign was the installation of the bike lanes in south Edmonton, so I’ve committed to a meeting on those bike lanes within 30 days of getting elected, so I’ll get to work on that. Citizens were very clear with me that’s something that needs to be revisited.”

Top priority for the city: “For the city, LRT is a very important thing to me, and that’s connected to some larger funding challenges the city has. I’m looking ahead to the continued evolution of our relationship with the capital region ... In the regional context, trying to get some fairness in terms of how much industrial tax our neighbours get and how much we don’t get, even though we are the service and arts and culture and employment hub of the region.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: The Italian Centre.

How he celebrated his win: Late-night party with family and friends at the Lemongrass Cafe, a Vietnamese restaurant in Ward 10.

Ward 11

Mike Nickel

Age: 48

Previous occupation: self-employed businessman and property-development investor, served as a city councillor from 2004-07

Top priority for Ward 11: “For the ward, it simply has to be addressing the infill issues in the north and the infrastructures issues basically in the south. Up north, we have some pretty aggressive infill that is really changing the character of the neighbourhoods and a lot of people have expressed concerns about how that’s been progressing. We have infrastructure issues also in the north ... but down in Mill Woods we’ve got drainage issues so bad that, if people are flooded one more time, we’re talking about people losing their houses. The city built Mill Woods, the city has to take responsibility for Mill Woods and its problems.”

Top priority for the city: “My first priority is to get on page with the mayor and the new council because they’re virtually all new faces to me now, except for (Bryan) Anderson and (Ed) Gibbons. The priority now is to help council, with the mayor’s direction, ... in priority setting, because we can’t do it all. We’re $2 billion in debt, $3 billion by 2014, so we’ve got some tough decisions to make.”

Favourite place in Edmonton: The parks and river valley, bike riding with his 10- and seven-year-old sons.

How he celebrated his win: With friends, family and supporters at his campaign office.

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